Marzieh Keshavarzi, Student Travel Recipient

Our student member and travel award recipient, Marzieh Keshavarzi, reports back from two international meetings

7th September 2015

New Zealand Society of Plant Biologists

I am honoured to be a recipient of the 2015 International Student Travel Award. Your generous support helped me to attend two international conferences and present a part of the work I have been doing during my PhD.

6th International Symposium on Production and Establishment of Micro-propagated Plants 2015 was organized by the Regional Institute of Floriculture (IRF, Sanremo, Italy) under the scientific sponsorship of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) on19th-24th April 2015. The symposium was attended by 242 participants, from 50 different countries. It was an exciting opportunity for me to meet many scientists from all around the world and enjoy a wide range of talks in different aspects of in vitro culture as well as social events after scientific meetings. My scientific thinking on my PhD project was improved every time I discussed it with another scientist. I received some suggestions from people who were expertise in some parts of my work that motivated me to extend my international scientific network. I presented a poster at the conference and received the student award in a special ceremony (pictures are attached).

On the way back from this symposium, I had the opportunity to attend to another symposium (The 3rd International Symposium on Quality Management in Supply Chains of Ornamentals 2015) held in Kermanshah, Iran during 1-4 May 2015. Attendance in both symposia was a great opportunity for me to present, to an international audience as well as people from my homeland in the second symposium, the results of my research undertaken in NZ. Also, as a result two conference papers were submitted to be published in Acta Horticulturae.

Thanks to generous organizations such as yours, I could have such a valuable experience and once again, I would like to offer my sincerest thanks for your support.